Shady Side Bonsai

Mojosan, 50 emails is not realistic. I answer over 300 per day on average. Taking care of a nursery is a dawn to dusk job. Then to update web listings is a dusk to dawn job. Something will give eventually and it most likely will be the gray matter between the nursery man's ears! Most bonsai nurseries or growing grounds is a one or two man operation so what can happen realistically is limited. Now there is always the option of jacking the prices through the roof so the nursery can hire more help. However, something tells me that the bonsai community would balk at that.

I appreciate what your stating, and agree to an extent, but also knowing what your budget certainly would narrow the field down considerably.

__________________
Cheers,
Tom
Shady Side Bonsai
Bonsai Vault
4MAAT

Graydon

No, not kidding. What is wrong with a general description is there is no general description. Each tree is unique as to the size, shape, trunk caliper and so forth. Trust me on this one. I spent the better part of a week there and root pruned 100 trees and planted them in the ground. One hundred trees made three rows. He has row after row after row in the ground. Minimum trunks 3" and up. Great nebari. Trunks with taper and movement.

Did you see the photo of him in the pine field? Notice the (at least) several hundred pines? If you want a pine no doubt he has one. Hs prices are based on cost per caliper inch (I think). I can't quote a price on his trees but he can.

As far as saving you both time and effort - well it would save you the effort. As I said before his effort is better used working on trees, grafting and pruning and general nursery upkeep. He's not going to list them online until he thinks they are ready. Until then you either ask for what you might want or go without.

Again - I don't mean to be rude. In fact I have spoken my feelings on Evergreen Gardenworks. It's not for me to debate how Brent needs to change his operation. That's up to Brent. He's got plenty of customers - returning loyal customers. If I hit the lottery most of those pines would be gone anyway...

Ml_work

I have been following this Thread and thought why put my 2 cents in, then I figure that's what this is...Chat..
First I will Thank Graydon, the pictures are really good and really gets my interest in Brents products.

Moving back to the first of this Thread, starting with the site. I work with computers and networks, have done just a little web setup. (By the way Phil does a Great job on this site, Thank You!) Most people don't realize that most internet users are still on the 56k dial-up connection. (me for one) So when designing a web site one must take into consideration that "flash" (flash is what I call "dancing bears") is SLOW. When a user hits a site, it should take less than 1 minute to be full page. If not, most users move on to something else. Example ...the weather channel...use to be good to check for forecast. Now they have So many cute, neat, interactive maps that must load....the rain has come and gone before it loads on my 56k, so I no longer use their site. (56k dial-up is not by choice, it is all that is out here) .
Brents site, I found out about it when I read the interview with him on this site. Had I gone to his site without reading about him on here, I would not have purchased from it. Yes for the fact that I did not see any product. But the fact I had read about Brent here, I felt I knew him and could trust his business. At that point I figured that his site was for the "seasoned" bonsai person. One not needing to see a picture of the product because of their knowledge in bonsai. I think that is what some of the post have been about, many of us are new to this and cannot put a name with a picture in our mind. So we want / need to see a picture of the tree.

Just as Tom said, most of the nurseries are 1 man show. Which you can only burn the candle at both ends so long and then it meets.

The bottom line is what Mr. Brent is happy with. If he has customer waiting list (and I have seen them when I was at his site) sounds like he has all the business he can handle. I am happy for him, to have a job one enjoys is a true Blessing!

ML

Shady Side Bonsai

ML, I was unaware that so many people were still on dial up, this is useful info. since I thought dual up had gone the way of the dinosaur. This gives me pause about my site. While flash isn't an issue, video is. I didn't realize that the download would take that long. One question though, once the person visits the first time won't the fact that the cookie is in place speed the process on return trips?

Sorry to stray from topic .... sort of

__________________
Cheers,
Tom
Shady Side Bonsai
Bonsai Vault
4MAAT

JLDoggett

I have split this thread to try to keep things in some sort of order.

Now my 2-cents:

I like simple, it is easier to navagate on my dial-up connection (no cable available at this location). Simple loads quickly, simple allows you to surf the site painlessly. Information is the important part, and certain sites (like Brent's) have the information that make it worth my visiting their sites.

I am almost finished a site for my shop and it is very simple but with plenty of information. Yet I, already, field many e-mail questions a day from folks who want to know more. I do not mind supplying additional information, but then again my product is not alive, it does not need tending and watering, pruning and weeding.

When I shop on-line, I prefer the simplier sites, I would rather send someone an inquiry to find the right item than order from a list of pictures and get something that does not look as good in person. Graphicly heavy sites can take forever to load (on my site there are only 2 images over 100k and most are under 10K) and videos are anathema to me. If a site has a video or needs a flash player to see some cute part, I move along to the next site. As for cookies, they do not seem to save much time for page-loading.

__________________
"Resolve to be tender with the young, compassionate with the aged, sympathetic with the striving, and tolerant with the weak and wrong....because sometime in your life you will have been all of these"

And I further resolve to click on an ad, each time I visit, to help support the site and to be welcoming to lurking guests when you join! After all, you're already here.

Ml_work

JL, I hope this is the split in the thread for my reply to Tom. By the way I Thank You too as well as all the moderators who help with this site. Moving things to the correct place, for people like me that just start typing away without thinking where a subject should be placed. Thanks to you all!

Tom, I wish I could give you the source of my quote "most are still on 56k" it was in some tech magazine or net article. But it is true, no matter if uncle bill (Bill Gates) thinks we all are on fast access, it is just not so. I have talked with the local phone guys (I work with them in sorts at times) and they told me it will be "Years" before fast access gets to me. Which is 6 miles outside of town, all equipment will have to be replaced before it happens. Fast access is nice but I feel that the internet will have "arrived" when going from site to site is like changing channels on TV.

The "cookies" are not really what brings the site back faster, they help. Cookies keep track of things like what you looked at...(what product= amazon.com, go there buy or look at something, next time you go back they have many suggestions for you based on what you purchased..I like that myself) , where you went on the site, user name and password if you choose. This can be good and bad, if you go to a site and look at cars, they can have it to show you cars in the add the next time you come, which is OK in itself. But they can sell that cookie info to someone and now you start getting emails and pop-ups about cars....not good.
The pictures from the home page can load into temporary folder, and or cache them selfs, now this helps to load the page faster the next time you go there as the graphic is already on your computer. Take a look at your computer at

C:\Documents and Settings\Family\Local Settings\Temporary Internet Files

Where mine has "family" you will see your user name
You will have to go to your "control panel" then "folder options" then the "view" tab and select "show hidden files and folders" to be able to see this.

Right now in mine there are 3025 objects, lot of cookies, pictures from "knowledgeofbonsai" , walter-pal , bettycrocker..bonsaichat......
So when I go back to those sites, those will load faster...
But it is those same files that can cause problems over time and need to be cleaned or removed. With IE 6.0 and up you can do that from the "tools"

As for video on 56k, forget it! I tried one time to view the one on here, it was just like the rest, take forever to load and then is slow/choppy.
Keep your graphics in the lower resolution (like the way you have to load them to this site) and even smaller. If it stays small on you web page it looks good.

Sorry to have been so long here and off the subject of trees. I hope it helps in some way.
Have A Great Day!
ML

By the way Tom, I saw some really nice pics from Hans Van Meer at a workshop at your place.